


clarity

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: He had always seen the future when he looked at Scully.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	clarity

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 7.01 "The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati"  
> A/N: for the anon who wanted "Scully: "Mulder, don't you know? How can you not know? Mulder. I love you.""

His mind was full of screaming. Everything looked blurry at the edges: chairs jittered out of place and he swerved to avoid them, only to find emptiness. Maybe he was seeing where they had been/would be. He was unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim watching the flames eat Dresden. He was not himself, and yet entirely himself, more himself than his body could bear. He could see the recursive trails of his thoughts spiraling out in glorious proportion to their logical conclusions. 

He could see Diana. Her betrayal was inevitable; so was her end. _I forgive you_ , he wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words. Anyway, it didn’t matter. She’d made him her plaything again and again, pushed him around like a chess piece across a board, taken advantage of a vulnerable moment. She had been/would be cruel. She had been/would be kind. He might not forgive her if she weren’t another sacrifice to his cause, but her fear and her scheming had gotten her to the same place they’d gotten everyone else. She’d only been the queen in someone else’s game, in the end. If her grave were marked, he’d think about putting flowers on it. One day. 

And then there was Scully: sunkissed, luminous with ancient knowledge, mosquito bites welted on her arms and legs. He wondered if she was having visions induced by the chloroquine she’d taken as prophylaxis against malaria. She was too bright to look at, but he could hear her. He could always hear her. “Mulder, don’t you know?” as she bared her teeth at Diana. “How can you not know?” as she peered at his chart with such ferocity that his doctors took a step back and tried to smooth the quavers in their voices. “Mulder, I love you” as she bent over him and smoothed his hair, her fury scorching a perimeter around them that others dared not cross. But there was peace inside that bubble, and the warmth of her hands, and the strange whiff of elsewhere on her clothes. He closed his eyes and understood the world again, for a moment.

He had always seen the future when he looked at Scully.


End file.
